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While there is a large, though inconclusive, literature on the impact of land titles in Africa, little attention has been devoted to the study of land conflict, despite evidence on increasing incidence of such conflicts. Deininger and Castagnini use data from Uganda to explore who is affected by land conflicts, whether recent legal changes have helped to reduce their incidence, and to assess their impact on productivity. Results indicate that female-headed households and widows are particularly affected and that the passage of the 1998 Land Act has failed to reduce the number of pending land conflicts. The authors also find evidence of a significant and quantitatively large productivity-reducing impact of land conflicts. This suggests that, especially in Africa, attention to land-related conflicts and exploration of ways to prevent and speedily resolve them would be an important area for policy as well as research. This paper--a product of Rural Development, Development Research Group--is part of a larger effort in the group to explore the impact of land policies.
A group of scholars converging on a common and socially relevant economic theme of research, that of households' welfare and poverty, met several times in the last two years to discuss the research progress and the opportunity to bring to gether for publication the research so far accomplished. They shared a research project supported by a grant from the former Italian Ministero dell'Universita e della Ricerca Scientifica e Tecnologica (MURST) now Ministero dell'Istruzione, dell'Universita e della Ricerca (MIUR): The Equiva lence Scales in the Measurement of Households' Welfare: Statistical, Economic and Demographic Analysis. The decisive meeting, an international seminar on the topics, was ...
Based on a large survey to compare the effectiveness of land markets and land reform in Colombia, Deininger finds that rental and sales markets were more effective in transferring land to poor but productive producers than was administrative land reform. The fact that land transactions were all of a short-term nature and that little land was transferred from very large to small land owners or the landless suggests that there may be scope for policies both to improve the functioning of land markets and to facilitate greater land access by the most disadvantaged. Analysis of the factors associated with success in a sample of land transfers from large to small producers helps to identify key elements for policies in both respects. This paper--a product of Rural Development, Development Research Group--is part of a larger effort in the group to analyze the impact of land policies.
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The World Bank's research is intended to address critical issues and problems facing member governments in developing and transition economies. How can the governments of the poorest countries generate enough revenue to provide the education and health services essential to reducing poverty and promoting growth and development? How can poor countries attract investors to build the infrastructure their economies need? How can they develop systems to bring clean water to the 2 billion people without it today? How can they train teachers and bring to class the 115 million children who have not yet received any education? And how can rich countries be persuaded to lower market barriers, helping ...
Despite recent advances in important aspects of the lives of girls and women, pervasive challenges remain. These challenges reflect widespread deprivations and constraints and include epidemic levels of gender-based violence and discriminatory laws and norms that prevent women from owning property, being educated, and making meaningful decisions about their own lives--such as whether and when to marry or have children. These often violate their most basic rights and are magnified and multiplied by poverty and lack of education. This groundbreaking book distills vast data and hundreds of studies to shed new light on deprivations and constraints facing the voice and agency of women and girls w...
The world's demand for food is expected to double within the next 50 years, while the natural resources that sustain agriculture will become increasingly scarce, degraded, and vulnerable to the effects of climate change. In many poor countries, agriculture accounts for at least 40 percent of GDP and 80 percent of employment. At the same time, about 70 percent of the world's poor live in rural areas and most depend on agriculture for their livelihoods. 'World Development Report 2008' seeks to assess where, when, and how agriculture can be an effective instrument for economic development, especially development that favors the poor. It examines several broad questions: How has agriculture chan...
The motive force of human activity that propels the stream of progress is here caught at its source, in its most modest, material expressions. The mechanism of the passions acting as determinant in these low spheres is less complex and can therefore be observed with greater precision. All one need do is leave the picture its clear, calm colors and its simple design. Gradually, as that search for material well-being by which man is tormented grows and expand, it also tends to rise and pursue an ascendant course thorough the social classes. In 'I Malavoglia' it is still only the struggle for material needs. Once these needs are satisfied, the search turns into greed for riches and will be embe...
Land reform can be divided broadly into land tenure reform (the establishment of secure and formalized property rights in land) and land redistribution (the transfer of land from large to small farmers). This paper therefore is in two parts. The first part focuses on property rights, giving a short narrative of some of the key land tenure and land policy issues. Though these issues remain politically sensitive, a solid consensus is emerging on how to deal with them--but only once the confusion is cleared up surrounding private common property and formal and informal rights. The second part addr.